Catalytic Cracking of VGO by Hierarchical Y Zeolite-containing Mesoporous Silica–Alumina Catalysts Using Curie Point Pyrolyzer

Abstract

Hierarchical Y zeolite-containing mesoporous silica–aluminas were prepared by the one pot sol-gel method using malic acid. Properties for the catalytic cracking of vacuum gas oil (VGO) were estimated using a Curie point pyrolyzer, to establish a novel and very simple estimation method for the catalytic cracking of VGO. Prepared catalysts showed higher conversions and selectivities for gasoline than zeolite single, indicating that yields of gasoline for zeolite-containing catalysts increased compared with that of zeolite single. Higher content of aluminum species in the catalysts resulted in decreased olefin/paraffin ratios and increased iso-/n-ratios (ratio of branched products to straight-chained ones), indicating that hydrogen transfer and isomerization were promoted by the addition of acid sites into the matrix. Catalysts with mesopores tended to form larger amounts of multi-branched products, which are very important in modern petroleum refining. When the yields of gasoline, single-branched products and multi-branched products were plotted against the conversion of VGO, the linear relationships were observed and the effect of kinds of zeolite was rather small, indicating that the activity and the selectivity were largely affected by the presence of matrices. Comparison of the yields of gasoline, single-branched products and multi-branched products at the same conversions showed that Y zeolite-containing catalysts always showed the highest yields and ZSM-5-containing catalysts showed the lowest yields although the differences were small. Pore size of the zeolite probably also affected the yields in the treatment of large molecules such as VGO. The present findings suggest that the appropriate combination of zeolite and matrix is the most important factor to obtain high catalytic activity and high yields of gasoline and branched products.